Posts Tagged ‘patterning’

Applied Materials has disclosed commercial availability of new Selectra(TM) selective etch twin-chamber hardware for the company’s high-volume manufacturing (HVM) Producer® platform. Using standard fluorine and chlorine gases already used in traditional Reactive Ion Etch (RIE) chambers, this new tool provides atomic-level precision in the selective removal of materials in 3D devices structures increasingly used for the most advanced silicon ICs. The tool is already in use at three customer fabs for finFET logic HVM, and at two memory fab customers, with a total of >350 chambers planned to have been shipped to many customers by the end of 2016.

Figure 1 shows a simplified cross-sectional schematic of the Selectra chamber, where the dashed white line indicates some manner of screening functionality so that “Ions are blocked, chemistry passes through” according to the company. In an exclusive interview with Solid State Technology, company representative refused to disclose any hardware details. “We are using typical chemistries that are used in the industry,” explained Ajay Bhatnagar, managing director of Selective Removal Products for Applied Materials. “If there are specific new applications needed than we can use new chemistry. We have a lot of IP on how we filter ions and how we allow radicals to combine on the wafer to create selectivity.”

FIG 1: Simplified cross-sectional schematic of a silicon wafer being etched by the neutral radicals downstream of the plasma in the Selectra chamber. (Source: Applied Materials)

From first principles we can assume that the ion filtering is accomplished with some manner of electrically-grounded metal screen. This etch technology accomplishes similar process results to Atomic Layer Etch (ALE) systems sold by Lam, while avoiding the need for specialized self-limiting chemistries and the accompanying chamber throughput reductions associated with pulse-purge process recipes.

“What we are doing is being able to control the amount of radicals coming to the wafer surface and controlling the removal rates very uniformly across the wafer surface,” asserted Bhatnagar. “If you have this level of atomic control then you don’t need the self-limiting capability. Most of our customers are controlling process with time, so we don’t need to use self-limiting chemistry.” Applied Materials claims that this allows the Selectra tool to have higher relative productivity compared to an ALE tool.

Due to the intrinsic 2D resolutions limits of optical lithography, leading IC fabs now use multi-patterning (MP) litho flows where sacrificial thin-films must be removed to create the final desired layout. Due to litho limits and CMOS device scaling limits, 2D logic transistors are being replaced by 3D finFETs and eventually Gate-All-Around (GAA) horizontal nanowires (NW). Due to dielectric leakage at the atomic scale, 2D NAND memory is being replaced by 3D-NAND stacks. All of these advanced IC fab processes require the removal of atomic-scale materials with extreme selectivity to remaining materials, so the Selectra chamber is expected to be a future work-horse for the industry.

When the industry moves to GAA-NW transistors, alternating layers of Si and SiGe will be grown on the wafer surface, 2D patterned into fins, and then the sacrificial SiGe must be selectively etched to form 3D arrays of NW. Figure 2 shows the SiGe etched from alternating Si/SiGe stacks using a Selectra tool, with sharp Si corners after etch indicating excellent selectivity.

“One of the fundamental differences between this system and old downstream plasma ashers, is that it was designed to provide extreme selectivity to different materials,” said Matt Cogorno, global product manager of Selective Removal Products for Applied Materials. “With this system we can provide silicon to titanium-nitride selectivity at 5000:1, or silicon to silicon-nitride selectivity at 2000:1. This is accomplished with the unique hardware architecture in the chamber combined with how we mix the chemistries. Also, there is no polymer formation in the etch process, so after etching there are no additional processing issues with the need for ashing and/or a wet-etch step to remove polymers.”

Systems can also be used to provide dry cleaning and surface-preparation due to the extreme selectivity and damage-free material removal. “You can control the removal rates,” explained Cogorno. “You don’t have ions on the wafer, but you can modulate the number of radicals coming down.” For HVM of ICs with atomic-scale device structures, this new tool can widen process windows and reduce costs compared to both dry RIE and wet etching.

In an exclusive interview with Solid State Technology during SPIE-AL this year, imec Advanced Patterning Department Director Greg McIntyre said, “The big encouraging thing at the conference is the progress on EUV.” The event included a plenary presentation by TSMC Nanopatterning Technology Infrastructure Division Director and SPIE Fellow Anthony Yen on “EUV Lithography: From the Very Beginning to the Eve of Manufacturing.” TSMC is currently learning about EUVL using 10nm- and 7nm-node device test structures, with plans to deploy it for high volume manufacturing (HVM) of contact holes at the 5nm node. Intel researchers confirm that they plan to use EUVL in HVM for the 7nm node.

Recent improvements in EUV source technology— 80W source power had been shown by the end of 2014, 185W by the end of 2015, and 200W has now been shown by ASML—have been enabled by multiple laser pulses tuned to the best produce plasma from tin droplets. TSMC reports that 518 wafers per day were processed by their ASML EUV stepper, and the tool was available ~70% of the time. TSMC shows that a single EUVL process can create 46nm pitch lines/spaces using a complex 2D mask, as is needed for patterning the metal2 layer within multilevel on-chip interconnects.

To improve throughput in HVM, the resist sensitivity to the 13.54nm wavelength radiation of EUV needs to be improved, while the line-width roughness (LWR) specification must be held to low single-digit nm. With a 250W source and 25 mJ/cm2 resist sensitivity an EUV stepper should be able to process ~100 wafer-per-hour (wph), which should allow for affordable use when matched with other lithography technologies.

Researchers from Inpria—the company working on metal-oxide-based EUVL resists—looked at the absorption efficiencies of different resists, and found that the absorption of the metal oxide based resists was ≈ 4 to 5 times higher than that of the Chemically-Amplified Resist (CAR). The Figure shows that higher absorption allows for the use of proportionally thinner resist, which mitigates the issue of line collapse. Resist as thin as 18nm has been patterned over a 70nm thin Spin-On Carbon (SOC) layer without the need for another Bottom Anti-Reflective Coating (BARC). Inpria today can supply 26 mJ/cm2 resist that creates 4.6nm LWR over 140nm Depth of Focus (DoF).

To prevent pattern collapse, the thickness of resist is reduced proportionally to the minimum half-pitch (HP) of lines/spaces. (Source: JSR Micro)

JEIDEC researchers presented their summary of the trade-off between sensitivity and LWR for metal-oxide-based EUV resists: ultra high sensitivity of 7 mJ/cm2 to pattern 17nm lines with 5.6nm LWR, or low sensitivity of 33 mJ/cm2 to pattern 23nm lines with 3.8nm LWR.

In a keynote presentation, Seong-Sue Kim of Samsung Electronics stated that, “Resist pattern defectivity remains the biggest issue. Metal-oxide resist development needs to be expedited.” The challenge is that defectivity at the nanometer-scale derives from “stochastics,” which means random processes that are not fully predictable.

Stochastics of Nanopatterning

Anna Lio, from Intel’s Portland Technology Development group, stated that the challenges of controlling resist stochastics, “could be the deal breaker.” Intel ran a 7-month test of vias made using EUVL, and found that via critical dimensions (CD), edge-placement-error (EPE), and chain resistances all showed good results compared to 193i. However, there are inherent control issues due to the random nature of phenomena involved in resist patterning: incident “photons”, absorption, freed electrons, acid generation, acid quenching, protection groups, development processes, etc.

Stochastics for novel chemistries can only be controlled by understanding in detail the sources of variability. From first-principles, EUV resist reactions are not photon-chemistry, but are really radiation-chemistry with many different radiation paths and electrons which can be generated. If every via in an advanced logic IC must work then the failure rate must be on the order of 1 part-per-trillion (ppt), and stochastic variability from non-homogeneous chemistries must be eliminated.

Consider that for a CAR designed for 15mJ/cm2 sensitivity, there will be just:

145 photons/nm2 for 193, and

10 photons/nm2 for EUV.

To improve sensitivity and suppress failures from photon shot-noise, we need to increase resist absorption, and also re-consider chemical amplification mechanisms. “The requirements will be the same for any resist and any chemistry,” reminded Lio. “We need to evaluate all resists at the same exposure levels and at the same rules, and look at different features to show stochastics like in the tails of distributions. Resolution is important but stochastics will rule our world at the dimensions we’re dealing with.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.87 billion for the month of August 2013, an increase of 6.4 percent compared to August 2012, marking the industry’s largest year-over-year growth since March 2011. Sales in the Americas increased by 23.3 percent compared to August 2012, while global sales in August were 1.3 percent higher than the previous month’s total of $25.53 billion.

ASML and imec announced the next major step in their extensive collaboration, with the launch of the Advanced Patterning Center. Together, they plan to tackle upcoming scaling challenges due to the chip industry’s move towards single digit nanometer dimensions. The Center will be located at the imec campus in Leuven and is expected to grow to close to 100 engineers over the next couple of years.

At the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in December, IBM researchers will describe a silicon nanowire (SiNW)-based MOSFET fabrication process that produced gate-all-around (GAA) SiNW devices at sizes compatible with the scaling needs of 10nm CMOS technology. They built a range of GAA SiNW MOSFETs, some of which featured a 30nm SiNW pitch with a gate pitch of 60 nm.

EV Group introduced the EVG 570R2R—the industry’s first roll-to-roll thermal nanoimprint lithography (NIL) tool. Jointly developed with the Industrial Consortium on Nanoimprint (ICON), helmed by A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), the EVG570R2R utilizes hot embossing to mass-produce films and surfaces with micro- and nanometer-scale structures for a variety of medical, consumer and industrial applications, including micro-fluidics, plastic electronics and photovoltaics.

Noel Technologies, a Silicon Valley specialty foundry offering process development and substrate fabrication, has increased its capabilities by offering 450mm wafer services. Noel now jumps into the R&D transition to the larger wafer size as toolmakers and customers prepare for the 450mm generation.

Customers in the Americas region (primarily the U.S.) are expected to account for nearly two-thirds of pure-play foundry sales in 2013, a slight increase from 2012. IC Insights forecasts that Americas region will represent 70 percent of TSMC’s sales, 67 percent of sales from GlobalFoundries, and 47 percent of sales from both UMC and SMIC (Figure 1). The Americas region is forecast to account for $22.4 billion of the $36.3 billion worldwide pure-play foundry market in 2013, which is up from $19.2 billion (61 percent) of the total $31.7 billion pure-play foundry market in 2012.

Full-chip patterning simulation has been a key enabler for multiple technology generations, from 130 nm to the emerging 14 nm node. This span has featured two wavelength changes, a progression of optical NA increases (and a subsequent decrease), and a variety of patterning processes and chemistries. Full-chip patterning simulations utilize quasi-rigorous optical models and semi-empirical resist and etch process models. This paper will review the steady improvement in the predictive power and runtime performance of the patterning models used in full chip simulation tools, as well as the factors that ultimately limit the predictability of such models. In addition, this paper will outline the new process simulation challenges that emerge as the industry approaches sub-0.25 k1 patterning: improving accuracy and predictability, including 3D effects, for an expanding set of processes and failure modes, while maintaining or improving full chip data preparation cycle times.

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Everybody’s talking about it, but just what is DFM? According to various EDA company websites, design for manufacturing can be: generation of yield optimized cells; layout compaction; wafer mapping optimization; planarity fill; or, statistical timing among other definitions. Obviously, there is very little consensus. For me, DFM is what makes my job hard: Characterizing it, and developing tools for it, is the most important item on my agenda.

In nanometer designs, the number of single vias, and the number of via transitions with minimal overlap, can contribute significantly to yield loss. Yet doubling every via leads to other yield-related problems and has a huge impact on design size. While there is still concern over of how many vias can be fixed without rerouting and without creating DRC violations, the Calibre via doubling tool can identify via transitions and recommend areas for second via insertion without increasing area.

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